This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions and our look through John
chapter eight, day three of our look through this chapter. We're going to be
looking at verses 31 to 32 today. You want to experience genuine freedom in your
life?

Who wouldn't? You want to experience freedom from guilt or bitterness or sinful
habits or depression or lack of confidence, freedom to be the person that God
created you to be. Everybody wants to experience genuine freedom.

Jesus talks about freedom in verses 31 and 32. To the Jews who had believed him,
remember yesterday we ended with many believed in him. And so to those Jews who
had believed him, Jesus said, you hold to my teaching, you are really my
disciples.

And then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. There's the
familiarity of those verses. You will know the truth and the truth will set you
free.

I saw an extremely familiar phrase from the book of John. You hear it again and
again. You hear it so many times, you mishear it.

I was just studying through this recently. The truth will set you free. Just to
see the misuse of this.

I saw this phrase, the truth will set you free being used in a magazine by
someone in the modern Nazi party. I saw it used in exchanges between
administrators and reporters in discussions about White House documents. I saw
it in discussions about the environment in the Atlantic.

I saw it in discussions about relationships and marriage. I saw it in
discussions of the impact of different historical figures. I saw it in science
fiction writers and what they had to say about their science fiction.

Everybody uses this phrase. And many times we misunderstand this phrase. This is
one of the most familiar phrases in the Bible.

The truth will set you free. It's also one of the most misunderstood truths in
the Bible. As Jesus talks about freedom here, this powerful change reaction that
he wants to work into our lives.

He talks about freedom. I want you to notice the order. I hope, I pray that
through this focus on verses 31 and 32 today, that you will never think of the
truth will set you free the same again.

That you'll have a different idea about what this truth is all about. Notice the
reaction that God wants to have happen in our lives and the order of it. To the
Jews who'd believed him, you believe first.

Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching," you're really my disciples, and then
you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You see the order? It's
not know the truth and the truth will set you free.

No, there's something before that. If you hold to my teaching, then you will
know the truth and the truth will set you free. That phrase, hold to my teaching
in NIV.

The word there is the word abide. Same word as is used in John 15 when Jesus
says, you need to abide in me. Jesus is saying here, you need to believe in me
and then you need to abide here, he says, in my teaching.

Now, what does this mean? 'Cause it's extremely important. He says, if you abide
in my teaching, then you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free.

You got to put all three together. What does it mean to abide? It means to live
in.

It means to hold on to tightly. It means you draw your life from it. A mountain
climber abides in her rope, in his rope.

They hold on to it for all their life, realizing that if they let go of it,
they're going to lose their life. In John 15, when Jesus talks about abiding in
him, he talks about it being like a vine and branches. The branch has to abide
in the vine, has to be attached to the trunk so that it will live.

If you separate it from the vine, it's going to die. And Jesus here says, you need
to abide in my teaching. You need to hold to it because it's been personally
given to you by me.

You need to hold to this teaching. You see what he's saying here? It's extremely
important.

Don't just read the Bible. Abide in the word. There is a big difference.

You can read the Bible. You can get to know the truth of the Bible better and
better. Know the facts and figures of what happened.

But Jesus says, that's not what changes your life. That's not what sets you
free. What sets you free is when you abide in the teaching of God's word.

When you hold on to it for all your life, realizing that it is your life. And if
you let go of it, you're going to lose the life that Jesus came to give you. You're
going to lose the abundant life that he came to give you on this earth.

Or if you never abided in it in the first place, you're going to lose the eternal
life that he came to give us. Big difference between reading the Bible and
abiding in the word. And when you do that, when you do what Jesus says here,
when you hold to my teaching, you draw your life from it, then he says, you will
know the truth.

Now, usually we emphasize the word truth when we talk about this. You will know
the truth and the truth will set you free. But really the most important word
here is the word know.

You will know the truth. What's the use of the truth if I don't know it? Now,
there are some things that we all need to know and those come from abiding in
his word, but the word know here is not just intellectual knowledge.

It is a relational connection. It is a convincing of the heart that changes your
life. We all know, you probably know people who have a lot of facts and figures
about the Bible in their mind, but they're not changed one bit.

I've always wondered, how does that happen? I mean, you go into a church and
sometimes the people who know the Bible the best, who can recite chapter and
verse better than anybody else are the most honorary, grumpy, complaining people
in the entire church. How does that happen?

How can you know so much about the Bible and not have it change your heart? It
depends on how you know it. If you just know it intellectually, it's not going to
change your life.

A lot of people know it intellectually and aren't even believers. But here, the
word know, that's the power to live the truth. This is a settled convincing in
your heart of the truth of God.

Do you see what happens here? Jesus says, if you abide in my teaching, if you
hold onto it like it's your life, what's going to happen in your heart is you're
going to know the truth. You're going to become more and more convinced of it in your
heart.

It's not like you're trying to live some life that you think you can't live. You
live in the life that he gave you to live. This is extremely important.

The Bible is not meant to be a list of things that are hard for you to do,
impossible for you to do, frustrating for you. The Bible is given to us as
life-changing truth, refreshing truth. How do I get there?

You get there by abiding in the word, by reading his word and drawing on it as
your life. And when you have that attitude as you read God's word, when you say,
God, I got a lot of things I could trust in this world, a lot of ropes that I
could hold onto. I'm going to choose to hold onto this one.

And what happens over time, sometimes quickly, sometimes more slowly, is a
settled convincing of your heart. You know the truth. You know it's true.

You don't just think it's true. You haven't just heard it's true. You don't just
hope it's true.

You haven't just tried to make it true. You know it's true. And when you know
something, you act on it.

If you abide in my word, then you'll know the truth and the truth will set you
free. That's just the automatic result that happens out of that. And it's
interesting.

Sometimes we focus on the freedom because that's what we want. So we think about
how can I be set free? We're going to talk the next couple of days in this study of
John chapter eight at some of the barriers for freedom.

But I would just say to you that the truth will set you free is not the most
important part of this verse. The most important part is holding to his
teaching. When you do that, Jesus says, you believe in me, then you hold to my
teaching, then you'll know the truth.

And then the truth will set you free. That's the automatic result. Don't focus
on the result.

Focus on the action that we can take, that you can take. Abide in his word. Now
in this, Jesus says, if you hold to my teaching, you are truly my disciple.

What's the name for a person that's involved in this process of powerful life
change? A disciple. The word disciple simply means learner.

Do this, Jesus says, and you're a disciple. Disciples are people who are
learning from Jesus how to live life. If you hold to my teaching, abide in it.

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Let's talk to God
about this truth from his word. As you talk to Jesus today, I encourage you,
pray a prayer or something like this.

Jesus, I want to know the truth. I want to be set free. But I start at the
beginning.

I choose today to abide, to hold on to, to connect to with all that I am. Your
teaching. I believe in you.

And because I believe in you, I choose today to trust in your teaching. Not my
opinions, not my temptations, not other people's voices. Jesus, give me the
strength to abide in your teaching.

I don't want to be able to just recite the truth. I want to know the truth in
the depth of my being. Because I know that when that happens, that that truth
will set me free.

And pray for this, Jesus, in your name. Amen. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to be talking about the barriers to this freedom and how to break
through them, beginning in verse 33.